Is Linux 3.13, the worst kernel version, ever? YES! It is... So, why Trust come with it? WHY!?

[Tom H]

On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 9:45 AM, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5 August 2014 15:33, Tom H <tomh0665 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> QEMU and KVM obscure?!
>
> Well, actually, seriously, yes! They're server-centric tools for
> professionals who know what they're doing.
>
> Ubuntu is primarily a *desktop* distro. The main FOSS desktop
> hypervisor is, I'd say, VirtualBox and the main freeware proprietary
> one VMware Player. Then, after that, Microsoft VirtualPC and Hyper-V.
>
> As I discovered in $JOB-1, KVM is no help at all if, for example, what
> you're doing is documenting a distro which uses GNOME Shell as its UI.
> GNOME Shell requires hardware OpenGL acceleration to run in a usable
> fashion. (So does Unity.) KVM doesn't provide that -- it's aimed at
> running server instances with no GUI.
>
> VirtualBox does this quite well if you install the Guest Additions.
>
> So even inside a prominent Linux vendor, which ships KVM as its
> standard hypervisor, for the copany's own tech writers, VirtualBox is
> a better, more suitable tool.
>
> I am not saying there's anything wrong with KVM -- it's a fine tool,
> for its purpose. However, if you're a desktop user and you want to try
> out different distros, or run a single Windows app that you need (e.g.
> IE or Silverlight), then KVM is really not much help at all.
>
> If you want to test ARM code on a virtual ARM machine, or you want to
> run virtual servers containing databases and groupware and web apps,
> then KVM is just the ticket -- but I suspect that the typical Ubuntu
> user doesn't actually want or need that.
>
> And personally, I don't want or need it, whereas I do need to evaluate
> distros quite regularly -- e.g. for this:
>
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/26/xbuntu_round_up/
>
> I used VirtualBox /extensively/ for that, but KVM wouldn't have helped me.

The majority of users on this list MIGHT be desktop users but Ubuntu's
been a pioneer in developing and adopting cloud technologies and its
the number one distribution, by far, on AWS.

I've never tried to use Unity or Gnome Shell with KVM but I'll take
your word that it wouldn't work because of missing OpenGL support.
However Gnome has a GUI frontend for KVM called Boxes. I've never used
it but its networking options are limited to basic slirp natting,
which is only useful for a non-server, so they might/must have made
Gnome Shell available via Boxes (with spice or vnc graphics?),
especially given how keen they are to prmotoe their own stuff.

But KVM is used heavily with Ubuntu in server rooms (I've worked on
two 200-plus deployments in the last year), so calling it obsure is
something of an exaggeration.

The OP's style was ridiculous but he had a legitimate problem, albeit
one that didn't apply to all KVM users because he was using KSM.